Italian volleyball club sues player for contract breach over pregnancy

An Italian volleyball player who is being sued by her club for allegedly breaking her contract after becoming pregnant said she was being treated as if she had done something “illicit and malicious”.

In a case that has provoked outrage among politicians and sports chiefs, Volley Maniago Pordenone claimed Lara Lugli, 41, failed to tell them she was planning to have a baby when she signed a contract to play for the club during the 2018-19 volleyball season.

Lugli, who was captain of the team, was fired in March 2019 after telling her employer about her pregnancy. She miscarried a month later and told the club she had lost the child. She also requested the €2,500 (£2,140) salary owed for the month she played for the team before finding out she was pregnant.

The club refused to pay and instead took legal action against Lugli, accusing her of not revealing her plans to have a child in an attempt to extract a higher salary. In a court document shared by Lugli on Facebook, the club accused her of “disproportionately selling her experience” and “hiding her desire to be a mother”. The club argued that her choice had led the team to perform badly for the rest of the season and, as a result, the squad had lost sponsorship money.

“When I read the legal document, I was so angry,” Lugli told the Guardian. “I’ve been playing volleyball for 25 years and had given it everything – they knew this. They said a 38-year-old woman should have known whether she wanted to have a baby and therefore should have said something. Not only did they call into question my professionalism but they are comparing pregnancy to illicit and malicious conduct – it’s a very serious thing.”

The Italian senate speaker, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, described the case as “violence against women”, while Luigi Di Maio, the foreign minister, wrote on Facebook: “To think that a woman today is forced to choose between a child and her career is no longer tolerable.” Giovanni Malagò, the head of the Italian National Olympic Committee, also expressed his “solidarity” with Lugli.

Franco Rossato, the head of Volley Maniago Pordenone, told the Italian press that the club had moved to defend itself after Lugli “filed an order with us to pay [the back salary]”.

He said the club ended the contract by mutual consent after Lugli said she was pregnant, therefore not activating clauses in the contract that stipulated penalties against the athlete for an early exit.

“Suddenly, many months later, we received a message from her lawyer for the presumed entitlement,” Rossato said. “Only then did we object and so activated the clauses of the contract.”